After seeing and being apart of many threads about certain "ministers" or "pastors" with people either saying they are false, and some saying no they are not i started wondering.

How do we discern who is false? how do we judge who is satan disguised as an angel of light? or from whom we should withdraw from?

My wish is not to bash a certain minister or pastor or church or denomination or anything of the sort. But rather discuss how to obey all the commandments in scripture from Jesus himself and the apostles to be watching out from these who will deceive many.

And seek out what scripture CLEARLY teaches about these things.

This verse to me speaks about those who preach "get rich gospels" from such run away. If they say belive in God he will make you rich and those gospels....

1Ti 6:5 Perverse disputings of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the truth, supposing that gain is godliness: from such withdraw thyself.

then we have the wolves
how do we know who these are?

Mat 7:15 Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

And Jesus also said this: to me this is a very serious thing he says "take heed", take extra special effort making sure no one deceives you. Many shall be claiming to serve Christ but in reality serve satan.

Mat 24:4 And Jesus answered and said unto them, Take heed that no man deceive you.
Mat 24:5 For many shall come in my name, saying, I am Christ; and shall deceive many.

and here we have many who actually belive they are serving the real Jesus, but are decived

Mat 7:21 Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
Mat 7:22 Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works?
Mat 7:23 And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity.

and this one, how can we recognize or expose satan when trying to come to us as an angel of light?

2Co 11:14 And no marvel; for Satan himself is transformed into an angel of light.

Please try avoid naming names or ministries if possible please. Thank you

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CHRISTIAN

I believe brother, that the Lord gives His Sheep, who hear His Voice and won't follow another voice - Discernment.

They read His Word, they are Bereans, they don't follow men for their beliefs and depend like a little child on His Spirit to do the warning of wolves in the flock.

Joh 16:13 Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth: for he shall not speak of himself; but whatsoever he shall hear, that shall he speak: and he will show you things to come.

The Apostle Psul came against a few elements of his day 1)those who were legalistic, those who added circumcision and the law to the gentile church inorder to be saved. They had changed simple faith into a works religion, we have that today also. 2)those who mishandled the word of God 1Ti 6:3 If anyone teaches other doctrine and does not agree with the sound teaching of our Lord Jesus Christ and with the teaching that promotes godliness,
The teachings that don't promote godliness, that's the real bench mark for church doctrine, many of the prosperity teachings have an element of truth but are easy enough to turn toward the sinfulness of mans flesh, which is what is happening. 3) Jud 1:4 For certain men, who were designated for this judgment long ago, have come in by stealth; they are ungodly, turning the grace of our God into promiscuity and denying our only Master and Lord, Jesus Christ.
These men pervert the gospel to a self serving gospel that eventually denies Jesus entirely, we see that through doctrines that accept certain parts of the gospel but than deny the ressurrection or maybe the virgin birth or some other pivitol element in church doctrine, they breed doubt in the heart and mind of those who follow them. There's more but this is a good quick list
:-) :-)

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D.Miller

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Bill

There is a state of one's spirit where they have calloused themselves to the Spirit of Truth so many times, that they are not considered His Sheep.

I'm fully aware that some of His Sheep are caught under false teachings, but you know why your Pastor Randles and the others from ACT do what they do.

In the "end" - His Sheep will not follow [i]another[/i].

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D.Miller

ACT - http://op.50megs.com/act/page2.html

Hi Dohzman, I high-lighted "end" and Italicized [i]another[/i] because Jesus warned us that the reason that these are being deceived is to persuade them over to antiChrist.
Jesus Himself called him, "another". Joh 5:43 I am come in my Father's name, and ye receive me not: if another shall come in his own name, him ye will receive.

Doctrine is mentioned 44 times in our N.T.
Sound doctrine is equal to right living. One with the other will eventually fall.

John 15 and 16 talk about the Spirit of Truth Who is Always testifying to truth.

It is no different than the Holy Spirit witnessing into a person's heart that their lifestyle is in error. The longer that conviction is thrown off and the Spirit is grieved, how long will that person stand?

The Spirit convicts of sin and to the Truth.

Sin and Doctrine go hand in hand. Both are the non-stop witness of the Holy Spirit. He is constantly speaking - unless someone shuts their ears to Him. No one knows how long that will go on, before the Holy Spirit is grieved enough to the point of giving the person over to what they "choose" for themselves.

This thread is about False teachers and false prophets - what do you believe should be said on this topic.

I know we're living in the Apostasy from Truth now - and that becomes more apparent every day.

Next is 2 Thess 2:10 & 11.

Do we say, "Oh no problem, keep following false teachers and prophets." ?

I'm confused by these questions so far.

Joh 10:5 And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him: for they know not the voice of strangers.



edited for a quicker link. http://op.50megs.com/act/page16.html

I really wish it was that simple, to say that everyone that follows a false doctrine or false teacher is false, but it is not, in the communion table of the Lord there is a principle of chastisement unto death (1Co 11:30 This is why many are sick and ill among you, and many have fallen asleep.) that needs to be noticed, this was to spare the person on the day of the ressurection so that they would not be judged with the world. The same will hold true for many who are duped by false teachers and false prophets. They'll partake of the wrong communion and be sickly and sleep for it but they themselves will be spared on the day of judgement, the Lord knowing the thougts and the intents of thier hearts.
Generally speaking>>>this is a blanket statement>>>not directed at anyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
The trouble as I see it in many that post so strongly against False Teachers and False Prophets or false whatevers is that by the end of the day everything is false, everyone in anykind of leadership is false and the person posting always is really one of the few who has the ultimate truth which leads to salvation, but they themselves have no disciples, generally speaking, and they aren't out actively seeking the misguided masses who are being lead by these false teachers and prophets. Which really makes thier sin greater by comparision than that of the false teachers and prophets, since they knew the way and did nothing to stop the misguided.

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D.Miller

I would say that to stay free from deception one must be careful that they do not become fixated on only one form of deception. Most who frequent this site seem to be passionately opposed to the errors of Joel Osteen and the Rick Warren types, but these are just one of many deceptive teachings out there. An over emphasis on any one truth will always lead to a neglect of another. An over emphasis on "holiness" (which is typically seen not through the lens of NT scripture but rather through the writings and preaching of "holiness" preachers...) is just as dangerous as an over emphasis on grace. The majority of the errors Paul countered were not those in the "greasy grace" genre, (although he certainly did confront this...) or the prosperity types. Rather his biggest "beef" seemed to be with the legalists and those pseudo-watchmen types who took away the brides cloak of imparted and imputed righteousness by constantly beating the self-denial drum. (SOS 5:7-)

Perverted prosperity messages, greasy grace/seeker sensitive types, and watchman wannabe's are all in the same category to me. One is not more dangerous than the other. One leads you into selfish materialism, one leads you into lasciviousness, and one leads you into legalistic bondage, cross mocking, worship of the human will (yes even the calvinist), and ultimately far from the face of Jesus.

It is important to be balanced! So many of us live on the defensive instead of the offensive. Everything we do is in RESPONSE or in REACTION to sometime someone else did. We are always countering the false. This can ultimately lead to the creation of error in the name of correcting error. Most errors are just exaggerated versions of the truth (although this is certainly not always the case). Most error can be corrected by adding something more to the diet instead of subtracting. When we subtract in response or reaction to error, we are always left with a mutilated portion of the gospel.

I was getting really close to error once in my life because I developed an unhealthy addiction to repentance preaching. It was ALL that I listened to. If every message was not a slam in the face, I counted it as being compromised, cupcake Christianity. But why was I so addicted? I would search my heart for every little impure motive, every area of secret sin, you name it, I searched it out. Yet I was living a moral life as much like Jesus as I knew how. I had so separated myself from anything that may have smelled similar to something that looked like it may have smelled like something that tasted like deception, that I was missing about 99.9% of the gospel. I was living off of the "foundation of repentance from dead works..." (Heb 6) which the scriptures encourage us to grow beyond.

I was stuck. Yet in the midst of it I had truly deceived myself into thinking I was right and everyone else wrong. I would not even witness many times out of fear that my witnessing was being done out of impure motives. Sometimes even praying was fearful! Was I praying so that I would be anointed by God so that when I stood in the pulpit to preach men would look at me and say "What a holy man of God!"? AHH! Even my prayers and desire for intimacy with God had impure motives behind them! This constant examination of the motives and "navel gazing" had me crippled and dying. I was desperate to be more like Jesus and for revival. I prayed and fasted and fasted and prayed. Yet my doctrine was horrible. I reveled in concepts like "dying daily", "crucifying the old man" etc... I had no idea that these were total misinterpretations of scripture. Maybe that was why I felt so stuck!

I've come to see that those who are most desperate for genuine revival and most hungry to bear and manifest the character of Christ are also typically those who really don't know the true gospel of the NT but only that of the holiness camp. I have discovered that most of what is taught as "holiness" and the "deeper life" (by the way-since when are elementary truths the "deeper life"?) could not realy be seen through the teachings of Paul and the apostles when taken by themselves. It was only in addition to the writings and teachings of those with a repentance fetish that I could see the scriptures saying those things.

In Song of Solomon 5:7- , the woman tells of how she is desperately searching for the one her soul loves. (as i was) When she encountered watchmen who beat her, bruised her, and took away her robe. It is often those who are most desperately seeking Jesus who fall into the hands of abusive watchmen. The scripture says that the "bruised" her. Bruising is indicative of internal bleeding. It's an interesting note that she DID not have these internal problems until she met up with the "watchmen". In my life I was actually living in much more victory over sin, much greater intimacy with God, much greater efficacy in witnessing and preaching before I encountered the watchmen - the unbalanced holiness message. But the unbalanced words bruised me and actually created within me problems that were not there before. I was just lead to believe it was the "self-life". Then my robe of righteousness was stolen. I could no longer see myself through the blood of Jesus - only the bruised condition the watchmen had left me in.

I write this only to say that I was nearly deceived by a more subtle form of deception. It wasn't gross prosperity or greasy grace - rather it was an over emphasis on the elementary truth of repentance. The less I tinker with the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and the more I simply find my pleasure in intimacy with God in the garden, the more holy I live!

these are just my thoughts,
God Bless!
Jeff

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Jeff